Using public screens in Birmingham to actually inform?

This idea emerged from discussions at the Birmingham Music Industries Group. I’m thinking about using it to boost local music, but it could extend to other areas.

We have dozens and dozens of public screens around the city – in New Street, the Airport, in the Bullring, all over. They carry advertising. and sometimes a bit of Sky headlines.

Why can’t they be used to screen data listing local events? A very simple list of – say – music gigs on tonight / tomorrow / coming up. Maybe display six events max, onscreen, for 30/40 seconds or so, or long enough for people to register the information. The info could come across once every fifteen minutes. That would take up three minutes of time from any one hour. I would want it to lean heavily towards supporting local talent – big international acts can pay for their own publicity.

Who pays? Someone has to collate the data. It then gets spat out to the screens, which is a relatively trivial matter. It’s not a huge amount of work, which in some areas is already being done. The big cost would be to find a sponsor to fund the purchase of screen time on screens all over town.

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